There are two types of people in the world: those that use animation in PowerPoint and those that don’t. Here’s how to strike the right balance between too much and too little animation in your presentations.

So let’s take a look at our two groups of people. The over-animators have a tendency to go overboard – these are the people that get their company profiles to boomerang in. Never use the boomerang animation. Ever. The under-animators have slides that look like they’ve tried to cram War and Peace on one slide, and Anna Karenina on the next. The audience reads what’s there, tunes out the presenter, and then sends chin selfies to their friends.But there’s a simple lesson both kinds of people need to know: animation is a key part of storytelling in your presentations.

Directions

If you have things like arrows, timelines (in fact anything with a direction), or if you’re using a Wipe, Fly In, Peek In, make sure you change the direction of the animation to match!

2. Overlap

If you have content flying in, try not to have it overlap other content: this makes your slide look messy and will distract your audience.

3. When You Can’t Fly, Peek

Bearing this in mind, if having content Fly In would mean it overlaps something else, use a Peek In animation instead.

For the keen ninjas among you, try and design your slide with a mask over the element that will Peek In: this gets rid of that nasty gradient entrance.

4. Smooth Ends

On motion paths and Fly Ins you can have your animations finish with a smooth end.

Opening up your Effect Options and dragging the slider fully to ‘smooth end’ will make your animation look a lot more natural.

5. Duration

Some animations default to 0.5 of a second, others default to 2 seconds. It’s rare that you will need the full 2 seconds to make your point. You can normally get away with making these effects 0.5 of a second too. On the whole try and keep your animation sequences to 6 seconds maximum.

6. Delays and Disappearing Acts

Delays are a really bad idea because even if you rehearse your content perfectly, there’s always a chance something will happen to make you miss your cue. But you can pace the flow of information with clicks instead.

The same goes with getting rid of elements on a slide – if you’re going to make content disappear, have it happen on a separate click so you give your audience the best chance of noticing.

7. Keep Your Friends Close…and Your Animator Closer

Don’t be afraid of animations, keep them in a nice, handy place in PowerPoint and use them to tell your story, but good watchwords are: if a fade will do, then that’s good enough!

We put all our animation shortcuts in a handy ribbon of convenience: add animations or replace animations and the best news is that you can download it too!

About the Author:

Hannah Brownlow turns words into pictures and helps BrightCarbon’s clients get their message across with engaging visuals.